“Radioactive” is essentially the story of Marie Curie’s life, or more precisely the defining moments of her life when she made such significant breakthroughs in science when she discovered the new elements of Polonium and Radium – and subsequently the evidence of Radiation which was a very important step to disprove the theory that atoms were indivisible.
The film begins with Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike) – or Marie Skłodowska as she was then known – as a practising scientist in Paris. She was forcefully making a point to one of the professors she worked with about the lack of space in her laboratory and the fact that colleagues were moving items around which invalidated her research. This gave a real insight into just how single-minded Sklodowska was, even at that time in her life, and although this resulted in her being kicked out of the laboratory, this was actually the start of her life as Marie Curie.
Sklowdowska literally bumped into Pierre Curie (Sam Riley) in the street in Paris. It was a very short meeting but Pierre already knew who she was and had read more than one of the papers she had written – he was very complimentary about her work and immediately offered to help her find a new place of work. Of course Marie declined this offer in her headstrong way but later accepted his offer when she realised she had nowhere else to go. It wasn’t long before she realised that Pierre not only admired her scientific skills but also had a romantic interest in her.
It is very clear that meeting Pierre was a significant step in Marie’s life and the film spends an amount of time building this to the inevitable marriage of the two brilliant minds and subsequent children that were born. Pierre and Marie collaborated on a number of research projects and whilst Marie clearly felt that she was a superior scientist, she also reluctantly acknowledged the part that Pierre had played both in her professional and personal life. She commented that she had “rarely seen a mind as brilliant as Pierre’s but considered her own to be superior”.
The world was very clearly a different place in the time when Marie and Pierre made their discoveries in Paris, the world was not ready for a brilliant woman scientist and as a result Marie had to struggle for any recognition at the time. Indeed her first Nobel Prize was accepted by her husband only, even though the award was for both of them. She was unable to attend the ceremony due to being hospitalised after a complicated birth of her daughter. Even when she was awarded her second Nobel Prize, after her husband’s death, she was strongly advised not to attend the ceremony – something she ignored.
It is hard to imagine just how difficult the struggle was for Marie but what I think the film does very well is to show just how determined she had to be in order to have her voice heard. She was without doubt the most significant scientist of her generation but the fact that she was met with brick walls whichever way she turned was incredible. A lesser woman than Marie Curie may well have given up her path.
The film doesn’t glamorise any part of her life and I think it is significant that it dealt with the affair she had with her colleague Paul Langevin (Aneurin Barnard) which was clearly much more about her loneliness since the death of her husband than any true feelings she had for him.
There are elements of the film that I felt were unnecessary – in particular the clips of future times where Curie’s discovery was being used for varying degrees and good and evil. I think every member of the audience that watches this film will realise that radiation was used in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima or that it is still used today in treatment for cancer patients. It is almost as if the film expects the audience to be completely oblivious to the contribution Curie has made to the world we live in today.
Radioactive will be released in cinemas nationwide from 20th March.
Reviewer - John Fish
on - 10/3/20
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